So, we have the month of September, gently slipping away from us and we are truly entering Autumn as the month of October beckons. As I have always started a new venture whether it be a new job or going to university, these ‘new starts’ have always been at this time of year so I associate these dates as a type of New Year. The weather has proved to be quite obliging as well although I constantly have to think about the jumpers that I wear or do not wear so that I am comfortably warm but not too warm in my walks down into town. Last night, after I had spent a long afternoon with my Droitwich friend, I perused the TV schedules and there seemed to be a very good programme on the culture, and particularly the food, of Spain. This focussed on the Barcelona and Cost Brava region of Spain and the gastronomy, not forgetting the World’s finest restaurant of ‘El Bulli’ which won the accolade of the world’s best restaurant for five years and for which there is a two-year waiting list for reservations. But after a bit, I started to get annoyed with the programme as the documentary made its way from elite restaurant to elite restaurant and although the food was delicious, it was bound to be at astronomical prices and way beyond the reach of ordinary people. For this reason, I prefer the series that Rick Stein used to make when he travelled around Spain and introduced us to the cooking of what you might term ‘normal’ village communities. In such settings, women were often the cooks and Meg and I often noticed this in our travels around Spain when we ate in what I call, non-prejudicially, the ‘peasant’ type eating establishments. Here they would serve things like locally caught rabbit, made into a stew or a ‘cocido’ which we really enjoyed but would not be served to you in a really superior restaurant such as in a Parador, which Meg and I would also frequent ever third day or so. Last night, I had a long (pre-arranged) WhatsApp call with my very good University of Winchester friend for we had some issues that we wished to share with each other and these calls can last everything up to two hours in length as we give mutual aid and support to each other. I was explaining to my friend how much I enjoyed good conversation with any pf the people that I meet but occasionally I hit a real low such as I did about a month ago when the sole topic of conversation (to which did not care to contribute) was the tribulations caused by the recent spate of traffic jams around Bromsgrove. As important as this topic is to many people, I do wish for more interesting lines of discussion when I meet people.  Today I am listening to the news of the Labour Party conference where the whole agenda seems to have been framed by Reform and the other right-wing parties and there is a constant drift to the right. The latest announcements are that new migrants to our shores whether legal or not may have the rights of their family to join them abrogated and are now having to demonstrate not only do they have a good standard of English but be asked what contribution they have made, presumably on a voluntary basis, to their local communities. Now all of this is well and good but there is a constant drip-drip of the sentiment that migrants are not welcome in UK society, conveniently ignoring the positive contribution that they make to the economy.  Due to their age profile they contribute to the economy via their taxes but receive proportionally less benefits than the indigenous population because they have not reached the age at which their call on services (health, pensions etc.) are on the same scale as the rest of us. So we have the interesting scenario in which migrants are actually subsidising the rest of us but this argument is never heard, still less articulated by any of the political parties.

The darker mornings meant that I was later getting up this morning but after my routine of Pilates exercises, a shower and then breakfast I was ready for my walk down into town.  Once within the Waitrose store I had a bit of a laugh and a joke with some of the staff that I knew well and also availed myself of a ‘free’ coffee. On my way back up the hill, I encountered some of my Catholic friends and we chatted about some of the ailments that afflicted us. I also received some news that the parishioner who was known as the Eucharistic minister and used to visit Meg about once a fortnight was now herself seriously ill and evidently, I was very troubled this news and wondered how I could get a message to them. When I got home, I had a delayed lunch where I stir-fried some vegetables, added a tin of chunky lamb stew and then served it up on a half packet of quinoa.  After an afternoon doze, I made myself get outside and wash the car as the building work which seems to have gone all around for us for months now leaves a fine film of sandy residues over all of our cars and the car had not received a wash for about a fortnight now. There is going to be a critical meeting of Netanyahu, the Israeli premier, with Donald Trump later on in the day and the world is wondering whether some kind of ‘peace deal’ might be forced upon the combatants. The White House is saying that a deal is ‘very close’ but I suspect that this is just a negotiating stance to force out a deal of some kind. There are a couple of very good science programs being broadcast on the TV this evening but I do not want to stay up to watch them. As they start at 9.00pm and scheduled from 9.00pm-11.00pm I may make myself comfortable in bed to watch them on them on the upstairs TV and then it does not really matter if I drop off before the end. I have often found it noteworthy that interesting programmes are often scheduled on a Monday evening rather than later on the week and rather have to speculate why this should be the case.

The evening before yesterday was a sad occasion but one which I was anticipating. One of the parishioners at the church that I attend each Saturday evening was what might best be described as ‘cheeky chappie’ Irishman. He always had an irrepressible sense of humour and was invariably cheerful even he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus some 15 months ago. His doctors had given him only three months to live but he had such a hold on life that he refused to die, as it were. He was connected with a great many church activities and was often called upon to read, in a delightful soft, Irish brogue,  some of the readings which form part of the service. Last Christmas, when I was in the Waitrose café with Meg and my University of Birmingham friend, he joined us and insisted that we all wear some Christmas hats which he just happened to have about his person and then he photographed us all and sent me the photo. I last saw him about two weeks when the disease had evidently progressed and he was being treated with morphine. Nonetheless, he had somewhere managed to get to church although he admitted it had been the most tremendous struggle for him and I joked with him and gave him a big hug. He had particularly wanted to be there to greet the newly installed young priest who was due to give his first service. It was no surprise that I learned a week later that he had a stroke and was then in the local hospital. We learned that he had died the day before the service, having been visited by the priest and some local Irish friends on his wedding anniversary. His widow attended church and she was evidently in a tearful state but was consoled by all of the other parishioners who evidently knew the couple particularly well. I hugged and embraced his widow, bursting into tears myself both or the memory of our departed friend but also because the event of Meg’s recent death is still in my memory. I am hoping that he has a huge funeral service because I will certainly drop all of my other commitments in order to attend it. When a long-anticipated death occurs it is conventional to say that that he ‘is in a better place’ but he was such an inspiring figure that I will never forget him. He was a man of such deep faith that I imagine that dying had no fears for him whatsoever as he knew that he would soon be in the presence of his Creator.

Sky News is reporting today that Russia has launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine’s capital this morning, killing three people and injuring about 10, Kyiv’s military administration has said. Poland closed the airspace near two of its southeastern cities, Lublin and Rzeszow, as its air force scrambled jets in response to Russia’s attack on Kyiv. Drones flew over Kyiv and anti-aircraft fire rang out through the night in what independent monitors said was one of the biggest strikes on the city since the Ukraine war began in February 2022. The attack started at around 6am local time and many regions across the country are under air raid alert. Some residents have fled to metro stations deep underground for safety as the attack continues. Poland closed its airspace near the two cities until at least 4am GMT due to ‘unplanned military activity related to ensuring state security’, flight tracking service Flightradar24 said.

As I walked down into town today to collect my Sunday newspaper, I encountered an acquaintance who I know quite well down the road who is in the business of selling her house. She thought that she had it sold at one time and then the entire sale fell through as sometimes happens and now the entire market slows down as the year advances. I always think that people have the notion of wanting to be in a new house by Christmas time and this means that getting a house sold by October is probably the right time scale to enable all of the searches and legal work to be done. So, our friend was a little pessimistic that her house could be sold this year unless, of course, the previous buyer who had dropped out comes back for a second bite of the cherry. This makes a total of four people who I know quite well who are selling and moving away, all for quite understandable reasons, but it also means that my circle of friends will slowly diminish unless I make efforts to cultivate new relationships. We were joined in our conversation with my Irish friend and these conversations are always very welcome to me but there is a slight downside. This is that when I have been standing for long periods, my knees lock up a little from the inactivity so it is always good to keep on the move again. After I had my cup of coffee in Waitrose, I walked back up the hill and then gathered some books tother for my Droitwich friend to read as holiday reading before her flight on Wednesday, We had arranged that I call round in the middle of the day but this extended until most of the afternoon as my friend very kindly prepared some tasty morsels of food to help me to keep the wolf from the door. Then upon my return home, I arranged to have a WhatsApp chat later on in the evening with one of my University of Winchester friends who I last saw on the occasion of Meg’s funeral when he made the journey up from Hampshire.

The Labour party conference ia starting in the forthcoming week and this might prove to be quite a rancorous affair. The boss of Unite, Labour’s biggest union funder, has threatened to break its link with the party unless it changes direction. Sharon Graham, general secretary of the union, told Sky News that, on the eve of a crucial party conference for the prime minister, Unite’s support for Labour was hanging in the balance. She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: ‘My members, whether it is public sector workers all the way through to defence, are asking, What is happening here?’ Of course, one is never surprised to see dissension in the Labour Party but it looks as Andy Burnham is building up a sufficient head of steam to mount a leadership challenge. I remember the comment attributed to one of Napoleon’s generals that ‘I will always be absolutely loyal to my emperor – until the time is right for treachery!’

Yesterday is the day to be dominated by the final of the Women’s Rugby World Cup with the kick off at 4.00pm. This means that I shall probably have to depart for my regular Saturday church commitment when I leave the house at 5.30 but hopefully the game will have been won and lost by that time. Having said that, in rugby as opposed to football, the final result may be determined in the dying minutes of the match and of course that could happen today. I searched the TV schedules in vain to discover when the ‘Bronze’ final (between France and New Zealand) is scheduled to take place but eventually discovered that it is to be broadcast on the BBC i-Player live in the middle of the day so that is another must for me this weekend. I allowed myself the luxury of a little lie-in until nearly 7.00am this morning and then got busy on the computer before I started my daily routines. Eager to find the originals of the ‘living alone’ articles which was a subject of discussion yesterday, I managed to relocate them again and this time I have them bookmarked so that can be run off as needed. I have one or two friends who may be particularly interested in these articles so I wanted to ensure that I had one or two spare copies to hand. I also organised a train ticket to Worcester for a little trip I am going to make in two weeks’ time to visit a friend for a coffee. Meg and I used to travel to Worcester quite regularly and we used the park-and-ride system which was excellent for us. But now this service has been stopped as the local authority thought they could not afford the maintenance on the park-and-ride site so this service was terminated. This must have been one of the worst cost-cutting decisions ever taken because it means that people like Meg and I would cease to visit Worcester and to contribute a little to the local economy by spending money there. Meg and I had found a delightful little outlet down in a ginnell which led into a small square and where there was the most wonderful cafe with home-cooked food and, as I remember, a stupendous fish pie on Fridays. But, as Jon Cleese said in a favourite line (on mine) in ‘Fawlty Towers’ when his wife, Sybil was furious at Basil’s tendency to have a flutter on the horses and Basil retorted to the effect that ‘That is another avenue of pleasure denied’. In the morning, I intend to visit my local Wetherspoons to meet up with my Saturday friends. They have been refurbishing the kitchens in the hotel which means that normal catering has been disrupted for about the last 15 days which has not pleased us regulars very much but hopefully, normal service will now be resumed. The Wetherspoon’s prices are ridiculously cheap because I tend to have an egg-and-bacon breakfast muffin with limited mugs of hot chocolate (from a machine) at the princely sum of £2.79 (which was half the price of the Waitrose cafe before it closed).

I walked down the hill into town and coincided with my two lots of Wetherspoon’s friends that I normally meet on a Saturday. The refurbished kitchens having opened, I could indulge in my favourite egg-and-bacon muffin and then embarked on my chats. I the course of the morning I received some welcome texts which means that I can probably pop over and have a few minutes with my Droitwich friend before she has a couple of weeks off work to go on holiday to see her family. When I got home, I cooked myself a curry and tried out some of the newly purchased Thai curry paste which I bought the other day which was really interesting. Then I watched the New Zealand ‘Black Ferns’ women’s rugby team secure a much-deserved victory over the French in the Bronze match play off for the 3rd place. The ‘Black Ferns’ went well ahead by half time and had scored four tries to the French one, but the French had a resurgence in the second half and strove valiantly for a comeback. But the better team undoubtedly won and the New Zealand speed and ball handling showed off rugby at its best. What was interesting about this match is that there were players on both sides who were at the pinnacle of their careers and because they would probably not be selected for the next World Cup. Consequently, this would be the last match of their international career and when they were pulled off by their coaches to be replaced by fellow team members, they received massive applause from the very appreciative crowd. The same thing will happen again, of course, when England play Canada in the final in some minutes time. I managed to watch the whole of the first half and all but the last fifteen minutes of the second half but by this time England and were well ahead. I went to church and then came back and watched the last 15 minutes of the match on the BBC iPlayer with England winning 33:13. Canada played somewhat less well than in their semi-final win over New Zealand whilst England saved their very best performance for the last match in the series and won out deserving winners. This would certainly not be the last occasion when a semi-final provides a better match than the final itself but the England performance today was hard to fault. The England team did not display the elegance and running style that we associate with the ‘Black Ferns’ but they displayed massive strength and superiority in their mauls and scrums, speed in the rucks and the breakdowns and accuracy in their kicking game. Whilst the England team did display some weaknesses at various points in the competition, then these seem to have successfully addressed by the coaches and the back-room staff which all contributed to the superior performance on the day. I quite enjoyed all of the celebrations that take place at the end of a competition such as this and I think that commentators and spectators are agreed that the women’s game has come on tremendously and the games have been played in a really good spirit which is great to see and you do not necessarily see in the men’s game and certainly not in soccer. 

The evening before yesterday my Droitwich friend came over and we cooked a meal together which we both really enjoyed. We have done this about three times now and as both enjoy sharing the cooking, this has turned out to be an excellent way in which we can relax in each other’s company. I had previously collected Meg’s ashes which are supplied in a stout cardboard box about 9″ x 6″ x 6″ and this was covered with a beautiful ruby covered cloth. In many ways it almost looks like the chalice veil which is used in a Catholic Mass at the start of the service to keep the sacred vessels clean and pure and although I originally intended to transfer the contents to a proper funeral urn, I am more than happy with how Meg’s remains are resting at the moment. She is nesting amongst a little collection that we have of owls and other wildlife  and at the moment is being overlooked by an arctic fox and a golden goose (both embroidered cushion covers as it happens) In vase this all sounds completely ‘kitsch’ it really is tastefulness itself and I am minded to keep things just as they are. Kitsch refers to art, design, and popular culture that is considered by some to be of poor taste, sentimental, garish, or overly commercial, often characterized by its superficiality or excessive melodrama. The word originated in Germany in the 19th century as a derogatory term for low-quality and cheap artwork but has since been adopted into English to describe items that appeal to popular, lowbrow tastes, sometimes with an appreciation for their ironic or nostalgic qualities. I did plan on transferring the ashes into one pf the large vases that we have but to be honest these may all be a little unstable. I am minded, though, to take the really excellent photo of Meg taken at her best (a staff photo, taken in her early 30’s) and using this in a discreet size to place atop the box which would be more difficult in a conventional case or urn. At the risk of being over-sentimental, I have a profound feeling that Meg is really happy back in her own home and my heart is filled with joy (and the inevitable tinge of sadness) Needless to say, my friend and I stood in front of the arrangement and included her in our toast to the three of us. Now returning to yesterday, I have an arrangement to meet up with my University of Birmingham friend with whom I have quite a lot to discuss – but that is what good friends are for, after all. This weekend will be dominated by rugby, no doubt as France and the ‘Black Ferns’ (New Zealand) will have a play off for 3rd place earlier on Saturday afternoon whilst Canada and England play in the final starting at 4.00. If I have to predict the results, I feel that both New Zealand and Canada will emerge as winners of both of these contests and England will have to be content with second place.

In the morning, I took the car down into town and then walked along the High Street to introduce my University of Birmingham friend to my ‘Donley Sanctuary’ café. I think it is true to say that he preferred the informal and homely atmosphere within the shop to what might term a ‘normal’ coffee bar and we had a really good chat about the things that we had been doing I the last week or so. He had just returned from holiday in Mallorca where he had found it very hot, not surprisingly. Then after I had returned home, my son and daughter-in-law turned up as they had previously indicated and I showed them the little arrangement  I have made in the Music Lounge to display the box containing Meg’s ashes, I intend to put a small red rose in a small flower dish immediately in font but I do not want the whole to look over-sentimentalised which is always the danger. Then I cooked myself a simple lunch of slices of ham, heated in some onion gravy and then served on a bed of lettuce.

I spent a certain amount of time trying to track down some internet copies of the three articles I read recently about the experiences of three female journalists who had been living alone for the past 10-20 years. You have thought this should have been a simple task of searching the internet but this was to no avail. As I am a subscriber to ‘The Times‘ I accessed their own website and eventually found the article in I which was particularly interested. But the reason why I had not been able to find the article in my my internet searches was that the same article was headlined in two different ways between the paper version of the newspaper and the internet version. Whether this is a regular occurrence or just an aberrance I cannot say but I was particularly pleased to be able to locate the article so that I could pass it on to on particular friend for whom I feel it may have a special relevance. I notice from the news bulletins that Donald Trump is claiming that he is very close to securing a peace deal for the Israel/Gaza conflict. If this is the case, then no one else has been able to discern it and I suspect that Trump may be deploying some gamesmanship here. He is due to meet with the Israeli PM Netanyahu on Monday and be hoping that by announcing an imminent deal which the Israeli leader may be forced to deny it is not true may bounce the Israelis into some sort of deal just to save face. As the days unfold, we shall find out whether Trump’s claim is true in any particular. Now to turn from high politics to the much more mundane. As I went shopping yesterday, I bought myself a ‘Peppermint and Liquorice’ fruit tea. Now his tea has an immense and interesting flavour that I suppose one will either love or hate. But many of these fruit teas are incredibly insipid and require more time in which to infuse but this tea is a real exception as the resulting taste is so powerful. The other tea I particularly like is ‘Camomile and Spiced Apple’ but this can be a little hard to find.

The day before yesterday turned out to be a nice quiet day and after extended chats with my family first thing in the morning and then with my Italian friend later in the day, I was quite content to have a delayed lunch and then a quiet afternoon reading.  Over the last weekend, there were some articles in ‘The Times‘ weekend supplement which I found very interesting and am sharing with any of my visitors to the house. There were three articles of which the first was headlined ‘Single for 10 years – and I love it!’ and the theme was of the consequences of living alone perhaps when in your 40’s after a marriage or relationship had broken down. All of the three articles were written by women but they could apply equally to men as well. They detail how all anticipated that their enforced state of living alone might be temporary and it was probable that they would enter now into new relationships. But this did not happen and, after a period of time being free and independent and having to organise everything oneself, often involving looking after teenagers, the contributors realised that they quite liked living alone and were starting to appreciate some advantages. I think they had all tried some dating apps and always found them unsatisfactory with time-wasters, retreads and people coming along ‘with baggage’ They would all quite welcome a new relationship with a man if one were to happen and, more particularly, they were to meet in what you might call the ‘normal’ process of living such as shopping or whilst participating in keep-fit activities. Now being alone myself for the first time in my life, I found this article had a particular resonance and can fully appreciate what led the contributors to their conclusions. Men are sometimes seen as being as needy as small babies and dispensable and, often in the case of these women at this stage in their life cycle, they derived a lot of satisfaction from their other women friends with whom they liked to socialise and even have as holiday companions. A common theme was none were ‘men-haters’ and would actually quite like a new relationship to happen but often it just did not occur and, in the meantime, all kinds of advantages could be seen in the independence that they were currently enjoying.

There was a report in ‘Sky News‘ that the already very wealthy had a particular dislike of higher income taxes. But I want to apply a little bit of economic theory to this which I learned as a teenage when I was studying economics for my ‘A’-level exam. What I had in mind is ‘marginal utility’ theory and I remember expanding on it at great length when I asked in an interview at York University which economic concepts had greatest applicability outside economics itself. Marginal utility theory postulates that the extra satisfaction you derive from each extra unit of consumption declines as you consume more. So on a hot day, the first glass of beer might give you most satisfaction but this declines with the second and the third glass and so on. But the whole argument applied to income itself in that as you earn or acquire more, the marginal utility of each extra pound of income will decline. Now if you define income tax as negative income, then the marginal disutility of negative income will also decline. This means that the extra ‘pain’ of each extra pound of tax will decline as you earn more and more. But politically, this means that the rich can pay more tax but the extra tax hurts them less and less. The trouble with applying the theory is that the rich shout loudest and have access to political power to prevent high rates of taxation whilst the poor bear quite a lot of pain from the taxes that they endure but thy just have to get on with it.

I the morning I went shopping to Lidl and this was only my second venture into the store. I found it a lot larger than the Aldi store in which I used to shop and therefore fuller of all kinds of things I would never purchase in the first place.   In fact, I did spend some time looking for (and not finding) quite a simple item and some of the things that I buy regularly but no doubt as the weeks roll by, I will learn to locate my favourites. After a simple lunch I cooked an apple crumble in preparation for the meal that I am sharing tonight with a friend who is popping by. The beautiful cooking apples that I am using were left in a box by the side of someone’s house with an invitation to help yourself which I did but shared them with our domestic help who called around this morning. The apple crumble has been prepared but not yet baked but I will serve it with some ice-cream as a dessert. Later in the afternoon, I went to collect Meg’s ashes which are safely within a special box supplied by the undertakers but later I shall get a more specialist urn for the purpose. It really is rather a strange sensation bringing one’s life partner back inside the house but in the form of a box of ashes but there we are. In the fullness of time, then I myself am cremated, then my son has been instructed to mingle my ashes with those of Meg and the two to be sprinkled together in Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District. I had only been back inside the house for a few minutes when our chiropodist calls around and we always have a good chat about every subject under the sun. Then it was time to start some of the vegetable preparation for the meal we are having this evening which is going to be a special treat of some rib-eye steak and good vegetables to accompany it. I cannot recall the last occasion I had a steak in this country but I am very partial to ‘buey’ or ‘ox-meat’ which is a real delicacy in Spain. As I remember how they serve it in good restaurants, then quite a hunk of meat is taken from a larger carcase which has been slow

Yesterday was dominated, as you might expect, by my plumbing misadventure when the sink in my en-suite bathroom refused to drain away and despite my best efforts with both a plunger and a drain-cleaning tool (a long piece of wire to insert down the outlet pipe), there was nothing I could do to alleviate things. My local central heating boiler/plumber firm could not come to me for at least a week so I had to consult the web to find someone. I did find a firm which I suspect what actually a franchise although my search term was ‘Blocked sinks in Bromsgrove’. On the phone, I was informed that I would receive a visit later on in the day so I cancelled my other regular commitments and waited in until the firm arrived at 2.30. The plumber who came (who, as it turned out, was ex-army) was incredibly good and allowed me to watch him work whilst he went about his task. What proved to be a life-saver was a wet-dry vacuum with which he sucked all of the non-draining water and the powerful suction of this machine solved the problem completely. Now this would not have occurred to me but the plumber explained that these machines were readily variable at a price starting at £40 and going up to over £100 so a mid-range machine could be got for about £70-£80. Now that I know bout these machines, I am not tempted to actually get one but having read some Amazon reviews, I think I will wait until I ever get another problem and then get one pf these ordered and delivered the next door. The plumber also showed me what he considered his most useful tool and these were drain rods which he used regularly and always with complete success to unblock a toilet. Now these are available for about £15.00 and might be worth having in stock were a toilet to become blocked. Actually, this has happened in the last year or so when one of the are assistants looking after Meg put something inappropriate down the toilet and I think my son and I had to resort to unblocking it by hand. So, as well as paying the fee to get my basin cleared, I feel that I have been a mass of practical advice from a ‘pro’ as it were how to stop problems building up in the first place and the how to cure them when they do go wrong.

Donald Trump has just given a one hour long, confused and confusing tirade at the United Nations Assembly where he was met with smirks. The president, who has clamped down on migrants coming via America’s southern border and ordered immigration raids, warned the UN that immigration and the suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately. He also said Europe was being invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before which made it sound like an invasion from Mars. But most importantly, Trump seems to have completely switched his position on the Ukraine conflict and now thinks that Ukraine could win the war and even win back all of the territory gained by Russia (which most UK military analysts think unlikely by the way) but in his desire to win the Nobel Peace Plan, Trump wants to back a winner and the fact that most of the financial support to the Ukraine is now being provided by the Europeans may have been a decisive factor. We even have Trump, who always vacillates on almost any issue, is now not averse to Russian jets being shot down if they continue with their violations and probing of European air defences. This would not be American jets doing the shooting but the complete change of stance must me very welcome both in Ukraine and Europe as a whole. 

The morning turned out not as I would have predicted. Firstly, I got up a little later than usual as the dark mornings mean that I jump out of bed at about 7.0am rather than 6.0am. Today is the day when in the last week or so I have left the house fairly early for a Tai Chi session but I decided to gave this a miss as I knew that my son and his wife were due to call around just after 9.00am which they did.  My son gave the fridge a good clean out as the drain screen has a habit of getting blocked so I need to make sure this is regularly maintained. After a long chat with my son and daughter-n-law, I started to walk down into town but bumped first into my Irish friend and then my Italian friend. With the latter I had quite a long talk as she was telling me all about the relationship which she had formed with a fellow bereaved person when they both attended counselling after the death of their respective spouses. This friendship had been going on for at least ten years now but what will happen when my friend moves house to be near her daughter, I cannot say (nor is it any of my business, anyway) but long-established friends often talk about relationships in any case. Then I popped into Waitrose to pick up my newspaper and to buy some ingredients for a meal I am going to cook the next day. On my way back up the hill, my Italian friend was still bobbling about tidying things in her garden and we took the opportunity for another longish chat, carrying on where we had left off about half an hour previously. By the time I did get home, it is way past my usual lunchtime so I made myself my favourite ‘quickie’ lunch which is a tin of tuna with some butter, mayonnaise and Thousand Island dressing all stirred into it and then served on a couple of slices of toast. Idly flicking through the TV channels, I chanced upon the quite famous film of ‘Educating Rita’ which is the story of a working class girl in a not particularly happy marriage who embarks on an Open University course and enters into a relationship with her tutor where in the early stages, they are each struggling to make sense of the other’s worlds. I looked on the web for a summary of the ending and found this. The play deals with the ideas of social class and what it means to be educated. For Rita, education offers an escape from what she considers to be a lacklustre life, but for Frank, it is a rigid system that squelches everyone’s personality. It is up to the reader to decide if Rita was changed for the better by her lessons or if she became exactly what Frank hated about academia. It is also up to the reader to decide if what Frank thinks is truly important. The play is an insightful look into the ways that social class and education can shape who we are. It is also a careful study in the uncertainty of transformation as we go through life wishing for something we do not have.

The night before yesterday I awoke feeling a little restless in the middle of the night. So, I popped downstairs, read an article I had run off the web for a minute or so and then settled down on the settee with a blanket over me. I must have been supremely comfortable because I fell asleep within seconds and did not wake up until 5.00am. Then I popped back into my bed upstairs and, with the electric blanket on, spent the last hour and a half of the night upstairs until  got up at 6.30 The mornings are definitely decidedly chilly these days and the day before yesterday was very bright and clear and quite a pleasant autumn day once the sun had got up. I heard a weather forecaster say that the air was so clear over the UK that at one point in the UK it was possible to have a view for 40 miles. There is not a lot in prospect apart from my regular Pilates class. After the UK formally gave recognition to Palestine as a state, the move was followed by other important states such as Canada, Australia and France. I am somewhat annoyed by the coverage given to this UK recognition as most of the Main Street Media is taking the view that all that the UK is doing is appeasing its own left wing back benchers rather than the merits of the case and this explanation can hardly hold for the other countries they have followed the UK in recognising Palestine. The key to all of this rests with the Americans who fund and arm Israel and who alone have the power to exact some sport of peace. As the United Nations Assembly is gathering in New York, it looks as though Donald Trump may hold the key to any resolution. Over the next 24 hours in New York, he will meet key Arab and Muslim leaders from the Middle East and Asia to present his latest plan for peace in Gaza. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan will all participate in the meeting. Whether anything will come of this is unclear but Trump is fairly desperate to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize and this alone might be his motivation. But more sanguine commentators are not holding of any prospects for peace until elections are held in both Israel and the USA next year at which point crucial power balances may alter. Part of the problem is that the Israeli government only survives because of the support of two really fanatical nationalist members of a minor party who are giving him a majority and without these two players in place, the Israeli government would fall and Netanyahu would be finished. Meanwhile Trump is doing untold damage by giving prominence to a medical report that claims to have found a link between autism and taking paracetamol in early pregnancy. The medical profession as a whole is denying any such link, pointing out that not taking paracetamol could be dangerous to an unborn foetus if the mother was suffering from a rise in temperature that the drug would reduce. But Trump’s MAGA supporters believe that every word he utters is gospel so following Trump’s medical advice could have dire consequences for, as yet unborn, American children.

In the morning, I had a problem which I could have well done without as the slowly draining basin in my en-suite bathroom became a non-draining basin. I did what I could to fix the problem with things like plungers and a more specialist drain unblocking wire (which I keep handy) but without success. I feared that my efforts might make the problem worse rather than better by compacting any residues blocking the drain so decided to abandon my efforts and message our local plumber. Bit he could not come for at least a week so I went on the web and found a firm that specialised unblocking sinks at rates that did not seem extortionate so made contact at them. They were due to call around at about 2.30 in the afternoon but I had to change my plans for the day so I walked down in to town to collect my newspaper and then decided to abandon thoughts of Pilates for the day as I needed to keep myself available within the house. Whilst waiting in for the plumber, I turned my thoughts to my YouTube history because using search terms such as ‘grief’ and ‘relationship’ the YouTube algorithm had locked me into a series of linked videos all across the common theme of ‘how to succeed with women’ To show how this is advertiser driven, one of these was actually sponsored by an organisation selling a Viagra substitute! I did not want my choices littered up with this American rubbish so took the bold step of deleting all of my history (as I could not find a way of deleting individual clips).  I did this with a certain amount of trepidation but managed to re-access some of the things important to me (principally some tracks of classical music, some of the American liberal political podcasts castigating the malfeasances of Donald Trump) and so I am now back on an even keel as I can now rely upon the algorithms deployed to only serve me up with material that is cognate to the selections I have already made. The plumber turned up and was helpfulness personified. He had a ‘wet -dry’ vacuum which removed the water that was not draining away and the accumulated ‘gunk’ which had caused the sink to become blocked in the first place. He gave me some very useful tips about what ‘unblocking’ tools to buy and what I should pay for them as well as useful tips and hints about to keep things clear in the first place. So, at the end of the day I was pleased not only to get the problem fixed but also by people who specialised in this rather than your average run-of-the-mill plumber. As soon as this was completed, I went and mowed the back lawn which badly needed a cut and then settled down to process some of my emails and text messages.

Yesterday turned out to be quite a ‘curate’s egg’ of a day i.e. good in parts. I had anticipated that in the middle of the day, my Droitwich friend and I were due to go to a nearby restaurant for a special birthday treat but some work commitments had reared their ugly head so we had to abandon this plan and come up with another. Knowing how difficult can be to find a restaurant that was open on a Sunday evening, we decided that I should go to Waitrose and buy some special food and then we should mount a little birthday party here in my house in the evening. This plan worked out beautifully and we had a really enjoyable evening together, first eating and then watching various video clips on YouTube.  I also played my friend the precious video clip that I have of Meg and myself giving our speeches to our Yorkshire relatives on the occasion of one of our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations. Our friend had shared coffees with Meg and I several years ago as we had all first met walking up and down the road together and we quickly became friends with each other, all sharing the same, internationalist, perspective upon life.

Yesterday was only the funeral of the assassinated American polemicist, Charlie Kirk who recently was murdered at the hands of an assassin. The funeral was attended by 70,000 including President Trump himself and the whole event took on the significance of a Republican state funeral, which it was in a way. ‘I forgive him….The answer to hate is not hate’ These were the words, perhaps, the message America needs to hear most and the one it has heard least. In a stadium packed to capacity, Erika Kirk’s address to an assassin was delivered in tears and received with silence until the crowd grew into applause. I think it is no exaggeration that the mood in America is practically at a turning point and it would not take much for an open civil way to break out between Trump and is MAGA  (Make American Great Again) supporters and the rest of American society. I was tempted to write the ‘centre ground’ of American politics but this is fast disappearing in the culture wars sweeping the country. In view of Trump’s failing health, it could be that the days of the current presidency are numbered. But the Republicans have done so much to grasp control of the levers of power, that a more likely scenario might be a vista of Trump policies without Trump but the future of American society is unpredictable in the extreme.

British politics rumbles on and we are left with the sequelae of the huge marches recently held in London. Police have appealed for help to identify an additional 18 people suspected of public order offences and assaults on emergency workers on the day of the Unite the Kingdom march. Between 110,000 and 150,000 people attended the rally in central London on 13 September, the Metropolitan Police estimates. Protesters heard a number of speeches, including from far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who organised the rally and called it the ‘biggest freedom of speech’ event in British history. An anti-racism counter-protest, attended by about 5,000 campaigners, also took place, with the two groups clashing on Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, separated by lines of police. Police previously said 24 people were arrested at the protests, 23 of whom are believed to have been involved in the Unite the Kingdom rally, while one was believed to be involved in the counter-protest. The force launched an appeal to identify 11 people last week, one of whom was identified. Officers now want to speak to a further 18 people in connection with a range of public order offences and assaults on emergency workers and have released 16 new images.

Later in the morning, I walked down the hill and into Waitrose to pick up the copy of my newspaper and then have a ‘free’ coffee. Quite by chance, I bumped into each pf the three friends I normally have coffee with on a Tuesday and then started my journey up the hill. Then my Irish friend was out in the autumn sunshine washing his car and that was an occasion for another, but more extended, chat. I have noticed that if I have several of these conversations,  aways have a ‘feel good’ factor and am wondering whether these chats have the effect of some dopamine or endorphin release within my brain as I have some transitory feel-good moments afterwards. Then I made myself a conventional lunch with some ham, baked potato and broccoli knowing that I would have to prepare and eat this in plenty of time for the physiotherapy session later in the afternoon. The physiotherapist recommended some exercises  with a tennis ball so that I could myself some self-massage to get rid of some knots of tension in my shoulder but did not think that I would need any more courses of treatment so I shall to ry to master and then complete these exercises once or twice a day (which is a little easier said than done) As it was such a beautiful fine afternoon,  cut the grassed area in front of the house but need to cut the back lawns tomorrow as they appear much more in need of treatment. I haven’t had time to select any viewing options for this evening but I think the schedulers try to ease you into the week with quite a good range of programmes.

One of my favourite cosmetics stores in which I have shopped for the last 18 years – BodyCare- has now collapsed into administration, At the moment, Bromsgrove High Street is dominated by coffee bars, vaping and charity shops but I do not suppose this makes it much different from other High Streets up and down the country. A combination of low footfall during the week and high rents and business rates has probably contributed the downfall of BodyCare. In the domestic political agenda, I notice that the Reform party is suggesting that ‘Indefinite leave to reman’ for migrants should be replaced by a system of 5 yearly renewable visas. Given the rightward drift of politics both in the UK and across Europe/USA, I would not be surprised if this new Reform policy on migrants would be copied by the other political parties, keen not to be seen as being outflanked on the right.

Yesterday morning, I awoke an hour later to be greeted by the news on the radio that it was the Vernal Equinox which means we are in the mid-point between the longest and the shortest day and we enter the period of the countdown as the days get shorter and shorter until December 21st.  The evening before, I went to church as I always have done on Saturday evening and managed to have a quick chat with my Irish friends at the end of the service. We were speaking about a mutual friend who is quite seriously ill and hoping for the best. Then, after returning home, I treated myself to a tin of soup recently purchased from Lidl. After I had done some domestic jobs, I settled down to listen to a long tribute to a singer one of whose songs I knew very well in my youth. The BBC had put on a special tribute compilation to Jonny Mathis who is now aged 90 but who only gave up his singing career two years ago. The track I particularly remember starts off with the lines ‘Let it rain, let it pour – I just do not care any more!’ and I think I must have bought this as a 45 (single record) in about 1961. For whatever reason, it is one of those songs which I used to sing to myself whenever it was a cold, wet autumnal day and I can actually remember all of the lyrics. I think the song has stuck in my memory because it one of those songs that is full of teenage ‘angst’ which was probably composed, and played, on the occasion of the breakup of probably a first relationship and it really does evoke the memory of a mournful teenager, probably stuck in his/her bedroom and being sorrowful and depressed whilst the rain pours down. So I watched the whole programme which was the best part of an hour and a half wondering if they would play this track but it was not included. So, I turned to YouTube and eventually I found and played the track which I intend to play to one of my friends who was due to call around in the morning. Straight after this track was played, the YouTube algorithm presented me with some Joan Baez tracks which I equally enjoyed so, all in all, I had a very different but still enjoyable evening taking me down memory lane.

There has been quite a significant cyber-attack on an organisation called Collins Aerospace which provides the software for many European airports and many airports across Europe were affected yesterday. A travel expert was shown on Sky News indicating that it was deeply concerning that an organisation of this size and complexity could be penetrated by hackers and there is even some speculation that a ‘large state’ actor such as Russia might be behind it all. Personally, I had never heard of this organisation but it is a third party to both the airlines and the airports and the disruption to flights across and through Europe is immense. At one stage, I thought I might have been in Spain at this time and so would have been caught up in all of this but I deeply relieved that I changed these plans and will probably now visit Spain in early February (when the UK weather might be bad)

The UK, together with Canada and Australia, has recognised Palestine aa a state in its own right. Starmer used the impending recognition, in advance of a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly as some kind of bargaining chip to attempt to nudge Israel into accepting a cease fire. But the total destruction and de ‘de facto’ emptying of the Gaza strip has proceeded apace and a figure has been published that more 65,000 Palestinians have lost their loves, many of them women and children. This must be one of the few occasions, if not the first, when a state has been recognised but there is no agreement as to exactly what territory the newly recognised state is meant to occupy. The Israeli government and a sizeable proportion of Israeli public opinion has now abandoned the whole policy of a ‘Two State solution’ Just out of interest, I looked up the whole of Balfour Declaration which reads ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.‘ What is interesting to us today is the part of the Declaration which specifies that civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities should not be prejudiced yet what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank are clear violations of this part of the Declaration. This must surely be one of the most intractable of all of the worlds’s geopolitical problems. What I think is so distressing to fairly neutral observers is that a ‘peace’ between the Palestinians and the Israel state must be so difficult to achieve when, in the view of the United Nations, acts of genocide are being committed against the Palestinian peoples. Even if the entire population of the West Bank and Gaza were to leave and take up a home in other Arab countries, then the resentments and hostilities would continue for years making a ‘peace’ solution along these lines impossible. My own solution, which is never going to happen, is to establish a Palestinian state on the West Bank making Israel withdraw to its pre 1967 borders . Meanwhile, a huge peace keeping force needs to be installed along the entire new borders and all f the substantial aid given to the new Palestinian state immediately withdrawn if as much as a single rocket is fired. But this is never going to happen and would require America to enforce it, which of course given the power of the Israeli political lobby in the USA is impossible. The trouble is that nobody in the world is trying to imagine how this conflict which has now existed since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 (77 years ago) can possibly ever be resolved.

I awoke to quite a dull day yesterday and slept in a little longer than my usual getting up time. The highlight of yesterday was the women’s rugby semifinal between Canada and New Zealand and I was not to be disappointed.   Six-time world champions New Zealand were undefeated in the Women’s Rugby World Cup for 11 years – a winning streak that spanned 4,063 days. None of the match day 23 in Bristol on Friday had lost a World Cup game. They had not lost a knockout game in the competition since 1991. They had only lost twice in 42 World Cup games.Their record now reads: Played 43, lost three. Canada, who had to set up a £530,000 (C$1m) fundraising drive – titled Mission: Win Rugby World Cup – to help them reach the tournament, delivered an incredible semi-final performance in Bristol to end New Zealand’s bid for a third straight title. A sensational first-half performance, including three tries in the opening 25 minutes, saw the number two ranked side in the world gain control of the game right from the opening whistle. When lock Sophie de Goede knocked over a conversion for her own try after striding clear, the half-time scoreline read 24-7. It is true that New Zealand looked to be the classier side and some of their rugby was superb as always. But the Canadian team seemed to have strength in depth and took every opportunity that presented itself, with some incredible running angles to score their tries. Their line-outs were superb and I think they only lost one towards the end of the game when the game was already lost and won. Their sheer speed forced the New Zealand players into uncharacteristic handling errors and this was one of the major differences between the two sides. In particular, when the Canadians entered a maul after a throw in near the try line, it was pretty evident that they would eventually score. By the end of the first half, the Canadians were three tries to one up and they added another try early in the second half. It was obvious to seasoned observers of the game that the Black Ferns would stage a comeback in the second half which indeed they did and the Canadians, anticipating this, defended staunchly. But the lead built up in the first half was too big a total to overhaul and hence the Canadians ran out as winners. They will be formidable opponents when they meet either England or France in a week’s time and may well emerge as eventual overall champions. 

As well as all of the Donald Trump generated news emanating from the UA, one of the latest snippets is that the Trump effort to sue the New York Times for $15bn has been thrown out by a judge. US District Judge Steven Merryday described Mr Trump’s complaint as a ‘decidedly improper’ attempt to attack an adversary. A complaint, he said, should ‘fairly, precisely, directly, soberly, and economically inform the defendants… of the nature and content of the claims A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective – not a protected platform to rage against an adversary’ the judge added. He has given Mr Trump 28 days to submit an amended complaint of no more than 40 pages. Of course, people of immense wealth like Trump will often go to law to silence their opponents but in this case, he has met his match. There are other disturbing stories emanating from the USA that the administration wants to effectively ban any news networks that opposes Trump by removing their licenses. One cannot imagine a greater attack on free speech than this and even some Republicans are appalled by the latest developments.

The morning turned out to be a very interesting one. I started to walk down the hill ready to meet my usual Saturday friends but my Italian friend was out in her garden doing some tidying up. So we had a long chat for about 20 minutes which was a bit delightful but my knees were playing up a bit by this stage with standing (and not moving) and I doubted whether I could get down and see my other friends in time. So I turned back in order to collect the car so that I could collect my newspaper and have a ‘free’ coffee in Waitrose. Then I got a call from one of my nieces up in Yorkshire who was driving up the A1(M) to see one or both of her children who are working in the Newcastle area. So this was a wonderfully welcome conversation and we always have long and deep conversations with each other, giving each mutual advice when we can. Then when I returned home and surveyed some of the roses still growing in our front garden So I thought I would pick some yellow roses to give to my friend as a birthday treat when I see her tomorrow. On the spur of the moment, I knocked on my neighbour’s door to see if I could ask her permission to pick some of the roses in her front garden to complement my own.  This permission she readily gave and then we popped into her lounge for a few minutes chat. Her husband was actually in hospital for a scheduled operation on his knee but was going to be discharged within a day or so. I said I would pop around to have a chat with my neighbour’s husband as he was bond to be a little immobile for a day or so until his new knee (if that is what he has been given) has a chance to settle down.

So England beat France, as many had predicted by 35:17 but this was one of the most unconvincing wins of all time and if the French mad made one or two slightly more sensible decisions in how they passed the ball, they could have scored at least a couple more tries in the first half. But at half time, England had a narrow lead pf only 2 points but gradually overhauled France who just faded in the second half. In terms of sheer rugby, the French sometimes played the more attractive rugby but English strength in the rolling mauls told on at least a couple of occasions, The English Meg Jones won a stunning try where she ran a beautiful diagonal lone to beat the French defence. But on this showing, I would hardly give England any chance against Canada next weekend.